


the stormclouds, the weather in my head - hadn't heard the word for melancholy yet

by braigwen_s



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Conversation, Depression, Gen, Grand Sneer (Discworld), Maternal Instinct, Moral Philosophy (As Always With These Two), Rated As 'T' For Heavy Themes, References to suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26867035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s
Summary: Margolotta finds the young man on her castle roof at night, watching the world and thinking.  She teaches him the word 'Weltschmertz,' and he pushes her to try and do better.
Relationships: Lady Margolotta & Havelock Vetinari
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	the stormclouds, the weather in my head - hadn't heard the word for melancholy yet

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from 'Children's Work' by Dessa.

Margolotta found the young man on the roof of her castle. He was seated on the very edge, one of his feet dangling into the void, watching the dark grey clouds pass over the bright white stars. Überwald was a natural habitat for Romantic melancholy – as opposed to romantic, with little ‘r,’ at which it was merely adequate – and Havelock Vetinari had indeed proved to be a natural.

“Vot are you doink here?” she asked him, something just a little maternal in her tone. As close as he was to the edge of the high, slick tiled roof, he could fall off. 

He could jump off. Humans had strange ways of commandeering the little, brief lives they were given. She did not want Havelock to do that. He was a rare, moral genius, and her library had not been so alive in many years. He was quiet, soft-spoken, but given a little prompting he had revealed the keenest intellect she may have ever met – and may ever have chance to meet – and he was only nineteen.

He was only nineteen. He was only nineteen, and yet he knew so much. He was only nineteen, and yet he _understood_ so much. He always walked steadily, and sat straight-backed, with the conscious politeness that meant his shoulders carried a great weight. He was only nineteen, and yet he _bore_ so much. A gift like his should not be thrown away. Such a beautiful, precious intellect’s lifespan should never knowingly be shortened. That was why she had not bitten him.

He did not respond to her question. She moved closer to him, hovering just above the roof surface instead of risking slipping on it. She would survive a fall, of course, but it would be embarrassing. “Havelock?” she prompted. Her voice was gentle.

After a minute, he replied, sounding both very young and very old, quiet but clear into the night. “The world is just full of evil, everywhere that I look, and it hurts. There is no good, anywhere, and I hate it. I’m so tired. Everywhere there is suffering, everywhere there is evil, everywhere there is more pain than mine. I want to sleep for a whole century.”

Margolotta sat down beside him, the wind blowing softly through her hair and clothes. While her hair was curly, and reached to her waist, his was straight, and had been steadily growing since she had met him. At their first meeting, it had been just brushing his shoulders. Now, it was long enough to fit into a loose braid. Currently, though, it was loose, being lightly ruffled by the breeze that blew hers. He was looking out across the wooded hills, at the little villages and at the sky. His arms were wrapped around his skinny leg. He had been experimenting with different trousers and robes, but currently he wore the same short tunic and long stockings she’d met him in, like a child’s school uniform. They both habitually wore black. 

She felt for this young man, wise and hurt beyond his years. It had taken her three centuries to reach his specific depression. She reached for the only clumsy reassurance they both knew, building kingdoms and fortresses out of language. “Are you familiar vith the vord ‘Weltschmerz’?”

He still did not look at her, but she did not need him to. He had listened to what she’d said. The routine between the two of them, at once wary and so easy, was a dialogue of philosophy, such as the ancients used to have. When one was speaking, the other paid attention. “’World-pain’? I’m certain I know the concept.” The wryness of his words matched, for once, his age; that was the teenage bitterness most youngsters had, not the more experienced bitterness of the cynic. “But no.”

Margolotta set her hands down on the tiles on either side of her, and leaned backwards, feeling the cold night air on her face. A normal human would be shivering, but Havelock Vetinari showed no sign of being chilled. He waited, patiently, certain that she would elaborate. After the span of a few breaths, she did so. “It is a feelink of weariness, of pessimism, at seeing how bad things are in ze vorld and beink brought down by it.”

He sighed, and leaned back as well, his arms leaving his legs. One of them stretched behind him, his head rested on his propped elbow. The other was lain on top of his stomach, as if he were nauseous. Perhaps he were; she would not know. “I think that I am feeling it.”

She did not know how to raise a child. She did not know how to comfort a young adult. She was a vampire, a bloodsucker – humans were prey, not to be looked after. But she wished that it were different. She wished she knew how to be a mother, properly, instead of just an academic whetstone. She settled for quietly affirming his statement. “Yes, I zink zat you are.”

“Will it ever improve?” he asked.

This time, he did look at her, and she, not for the first time, was struck by the bright blue of his eyes, like the cracks in a glacier. He was asking her a question as if to divine his future, decide his path, instead of just to find a point to dispute or to educate himself about lands and cultures foreign. He was almost willingly vulnerable, something psychologically adjacent to baring his jugular. She had the unsettling feeling that she did not want to disappoint him. She lifted one hand up, watching a flock of bats drift to a tree. It may be that she could get better. It could be that they could find some worth, somewhere. When she felt ready to, she met his gaze with her own brown eyes, with her inhuman, slitted pupils. He never looked taken aback by them. She liked that about him. “It may be ve can find vays to improve it.”


End file.
